Homework 1

The goal of this week's assignment is to get you set up for the rest of the semester. You'll explore git (and Gitlab) and D3 and build a webpage that includes images and a simple D3 demo.

For this assignment only -- you may ask others in the class for help with these setup tasks.

Set up your ODU CS webspace

To host webpages in your cs.odu.edu account, you must first have a CS account (this will be different than your ODU MIDAS account). If you do not yet have one, see https://accounts.cs.odu.edu/validate/ or contact the Systems Group (root@cs.odu.edu). You can verify that your account has been created by logging in at https://accounts.cs.odu.edu/

If you are new to ODU-CS, you will also need to make sure that your @cs.odu.edu email account is setup (see CS Systems Group's Email Services)

I assume that you are familiar with the Unix/Linux environment. If you are not, review the notes from CS 252 - Intro to Unix.

This file can remain blank. It prevents people from being able to browse your cs725 directory without knowing the exact URLs.

Now, any world-readable files that you put in your ~/public_html/cs725/ directory can be accessed on the web at http://www.cs.odu.edu/~username/cs725/filename

Git and Gitlab

Git is a version control system for tracking changes in source code. This is the same system that is used in the popular github code hosting platform. To get familiar with the basics of git, read git - the simple guide.

Add me (mweigle) as a Reporter on your project -- if this step is not done, I will not be able to grade your assignment

Follow the instructions on Command Line basic commands page (through "Go into a project, directory or file to work in it") to clone your CS725-HW1 project in your ~/public_html/cs725/ directory in your ODU-CS account.

For the rest of this assignment, you'll add images and files to this new project. You may add the files either through the Gitlab webpages or through the command-line (refer back to git - the simple guide). Just make sure that the version in your local repository (in your ODU-CS account) is up-to-date with the remote repository (in Gitlab).

The goal here is to allow you to build webpages that you can view at http://www.cs.odu.edu/~username/cs725/filename, but that are version-controlled in git using Gitlab.

You are strongly encouraged to develop using the Gitlab environment (either through their UI or through Unix), instead of developing on your local machine. This will enable you to take advantage of the version control available through git.